When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, many Americans had serious reservations about electing a Roman Catholic to the presidency. Voter concern stemmed from the fact that Roman Catholics hold their Pope to be the Vicar of Christ. As Christ’s infallible spokesman on earth, the Roman Pontiff is to receive the absolute allegiance of Roman Catholics in all matters of faith and practice. Thus, many Americans were understandably concerned that a Catholic president would prove to be a puppet of the Roman Pontiff, with strings running from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Kennedy successfully quieted voters’ qualms by assuring Americans that his election to the presidency would compel him outside the jurisdiction of the pontificate, at least when it came to his civic life and responsibilities. In other words, as president he vowed to take off the cloak of Catholicism in the Oval Office and to only don it in the privacy of the Executive Residence. While I’m not sure this makes for a good Roman Catholic, it did make for a good presidential candidate. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected the 35th president of the United States of America. Also, he proved true to his word, scarcely showing any trace of religious convictions during his abbreviated 1,000 days in office.
To Kennedy’s credit, he did not accuse those questioning his presidential candidacy of being guilty of religious bigotry or intolerance. He recognized such questions as legitimate. Furthermore, he went out of his way to answer them directly and publicly, even going so far as to meet with the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in order to field questions from Protestant ministers hostile to his candidacy. Compare this to today’s presidential aspirants, who often ascribe illegitimate motives to their legitimate questioners and refuse to answer the questions of any audience that has not be carefully selected and scripted by their political handlers.
To Kennedy, a candidate’s defining of his religious tenets promoted understanding between differing faiths, as well as alleviated the apprehension of America’s atheists and agnostics when it came to religious candidates seeking political office. It also helped a country of diverse religions and non-religionists to find common ground on which to unite in the hope of forging a stronger America.
As we all know, John F. Kennedy’s presidency was tragically ended by an assassin’s bullet, but what may be a greater tragedy by far is the fact that lofty ideas like his have long since passed away from our country’s political landscape. Today, any questioning of a candidate’s religious convictions is condemned as religious bigotry and intolerance. What's more, sincerely held religious convictions, those that candidates refuse to strip off in public office and compromise in accordance with public opinion polls, are roundly denounced as divisive and detrimental to the good of our nation.
Far from feeling obligated to field questions and directly address voter concerns, today’s politicians appear insulted at the mere insinuation that anything about them is questionable at all. When it comes to their religious faith, they insist that it is a private matter. Therefore, the electorate has no business sticking its nose into their religious beliefs, irregardless of what they profess to believe and whether or not they actually practice their religious profession. Of course, these same politicians have no problem publicly parading their “private” faith whenever it serves their political interest.
According to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, his Mormon faith should have no bearing whatsoever on voters at the ballot box. In a recent speech designed to do away with voters’ qualms about electing a Mormon president, Romney suggested that all who oppose his candidacy for the presidency on the basis of his membership in a religious cult are guilty of imposing on him a religious test that the Constitution prohibits from being imposed on any political candidate. Furthermore, in a debate in Iowa, Romney went so far as to accuse voters who attack a candidate’s religious faith of being “un-American.”
Despite the fact that the Constitution’s prohibition against religious tests for political office bans government imposition alone, it is being widely misinterpreted today to outlaw all voter concern over political candidates’ religious beliefs or lack thereof. While one would expect Mitt Romney—a member of a Christian cult running for president—to grossly misinterpret and generally misapply Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, one would not expect Romney to be parroted by evangelical Christians like Cal Thomas and Richard Land.
In a recent column, America’s number one syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, accused evangelical Christians of violating the U.S. Constitution by making a criterion for marking their ballots the religious convictions of political candidates. According to Thomas, “It shouldn’t matter where—or if—a candidate goes to church, but whether he (or she) can run the country well.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? After all, this is merely a new twist on the same argument that Friends of Bill (FOB) made against the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton.
During the Clinton impeachment, we were incessantly told by diehard Clinton supporters that a president’s personal beliefs and private behavior are absolutely irrelevant, not to mention none of our business. The only thing that really matters is whether or not a president shows up for work on time at the Oval Office. And even then, the goings-on behind closed doors and the interns hid in closets are completely inconsequential as long as the country has a strong economy.
In a feeble attempt to further his seriously flawed argument, Thomas offers the following illustration: “If a car hits me, I care more about whether the ambulance driver knows the way to the nearest hospital and the skills of the emergency room doctor than where they stand with God. That’s the attitude we should have toward those who desire to be president of the United States in a fallen world.”
What if Thomas’ ambulance driver is a member of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and runs across a lazy hound lying in the middle of the road while on route to the nearest hospital? Is the ambulance driver’s sense of direction still the only thing Cal cares about? And what if the emergency room physician is a radical Muslim and secret member of Al-Qaeda, who just happens to recognize Mr. Thomas as America’s most influential Christian columnist? Is the emergency room physician’s skill with a scalper still Cal’s only concern?
Contrary to Cal Thomas’ opinion, a presidential candidate’s “stand with God,” just like everyone else’s, is of utmost importance. The Bible says, “When the righteous [those who are right with God] are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked [those who are not right with God] beareth rule, the people mourn” (Proverbs 29:2).
Like Cal Thomas, Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, scolds the saints for scrutinizing political candidates’ religious convictions. Land cries foul to fellow-Christians’ dismissal of Romney’s presidential candidacy on the sole grounds of his Mormon faith. According to Land, “We have a constitutional prohibition against religious test for office and, after all, we are voting for a commander-in-chief not a pastor-in-chief.”
Perhaps, a bigger surprise in Romney’s Mormon corner than Cal Thomas or Richard Land is Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who also happens to be running against Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. Although one would expect a political rival to revel in the electorate’s renunciation of Romney’s bizarre religious beliefs, Huckabee rushes to Romney’s defense, insisting that Mitt’s Mormonism has no bearing on whether or not he would make a good president.
What if a presidential candidate was a Satanist? Would it be un-American and unconstitutional for Christians to vote against such a candidate on the sole basis of their membership in Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan? Does a presidential aspirant’s adherence to a self-proclaimed anti-Christian faith really have no bearing on what kind of president he (or she) would prove to be in a nation founded upon the Judeo-Christian ethic?
What if a Muslim ran for president? Would it be un-American and unconstitutional for voters to vote against such a candidate on the sole basis of their adherence to the Religion of the Sword, a religion that teaches its adherents to fight all people until they are converted to Islam and under the control of the Islamic State? Is a presidential candidate’s ability to uphold and defend our Constitution really unaffected by his (or her) adherence to a militant religion that is diametrically opposed to the Constitution itself?
Obviously, the religious convictions of presidential candidates are far from inconsequential; in fact, they may be the most determining factor of all when it comes to what kind of president a candidate will prove to be. If a candidate’s values and positions matter, then why doesn't the candidate’s faith? After all, the principles and policies of most political candidates are at least partially, if not primarily, derived from their religious faith or lack thereof. Why, then, is the American electorate being brainwashed into believing that political candidates’ religious convictions are out-of-bounds and beside the point?
Mitt Romney maintains that his Mormon faith will not define his presidency. If elected, Romney’s assertion may prove accurate. Many a modern-day president has served out his term in office without any trace of his religious profession in his public life. Still, Romney’s Mormon faith speaks volumes about him personally, irregardless of whether or not it says anything about him politically. Thus, Mitt’s Mormonism is inseparable from any prognostication regarding a Romney presidency.
According to former President and ex-Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter, Mormons, like Mitt, are Christians. In his recent and much ballyhooed speech on religion, Mitt Romney himself professed to believe “that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.” So what’s the big deal about a Romney run for the White House? Well, to begin with, one cannot help but take with a grain of salt the christening of Mormons as Christians by the likes of Jimmy Carter—a man who left the Southern Baptist Convention over its refusal to compromise Scripture in order to embrace today’s political correctness. In addition, Romney’s profession of Christ as the Savior of mankind has to be held suspect, since Mormons, like all other Christian cultists, are notorious for professing what Christians profess without meaning what Christians mean.
Mormons are anything but Christians, as is easily proven by a simple study of the history and doctrines of the Mormon faith.
The Mormon faith was founded by Joseph Smith Jr., a man who spent his early years aiding his father Joseph Smith Sr. in a relentless quest for imaginary treasurers. Having dotted the landscape of parts of Vermont and upper state New York with craters from failed treasure digs, Joseph Smith Jr. was convicted in 1826 of “money digging” and “peep-stone gazing”—two misdemeanor crimes in the 1820s. Supposedly, the junior Smith possessed mystical powers that enabled him to locate hidden treasurers buried in the bowels of the earth by peering into a stone that he kept in his hat. According to both his father and mother, little Joe Jr. also told fortunes and was quite handy with a divining rod.
At the age of fifteen, Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father and God the Son appeared to him in a nearby woods. This incident is recorded in depth in Smith’s book The Pearl of Great Price, which is one of the “Four Standard Works” recognized by Mormons as making up authorized Scripture, the other three being Doctrines and Covenants, the King James Version of the Bible—“as far as it is translated correctly”—and, of course, The Book of Mormon. Smith alleges that the two “personages” that appeared to him in the woods condemned the Christian church as false and called him to restore genuine Christianity to the earth, mighty tall orders for a fifteen-year-old kid. It is this supposed event in the life of the youthful Smith that Mormons point to as the beginning of their founder’s prophetic career.
The Mormon faith has always maintained that Christianity fell into complete apostasy subsequent to the death of the apostles. Consequently, all orthodox Christians in the world today are members of “the great and abominable church”; that is, a church built by frauds and imposters. It is Mormons alone who are true Christians and Joseph Smith who is to be credited with restoring true Christianity and launching the new dispensation. Therefore, when Mormons like Mitt Romney profess to be Christians, they’re not professing to be orthodox Christians, but the only Christians; they’re not including themselves among us, but excluding us from the ranks of true Christianity.
As hard as it is to swallow Smith’s story of his teenage commissioning by two-thirds of the godhead in a neighboring woods, it is even harder to swallow the fanciful tale told by him in regards to the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. Though the tale itself is quite bizarre, it is made completely unbelievable by the fact that geneticists, anthropologists and archaeologists have found no evidence in confirmation of the Book of Mormon, but an abundance of evidence in complete contradiction of its teachings.
In 1823, Smith alleged that an angel by the name of Moroni appeared at his bedside. Afterward, the angel led Smith to some golden tablets buried in a hill called Cumorah, which was near Palmyra, New York. Once the tablets or plates were unearthed, Smith began the difficult task of translating them from “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics” into English. Smith was able to do so with the help of what he called the “Urim and Thummin”—a pair of miraculous spectacles provided to him by the angel Moroni.
During the translation, Smith would enter into a booth where the golden tablets and spectacles were kept. Once inside, he would pull a curtain so as to conceal himself from the scribes seated outside the booth. Smith would then supposedly look through the spectacles and read the tablets out loud so that the scribes seated outside could write down what he said. Miraculously and mysteriously, not to mention very conveniently, both the golden plates and spectacles vanished the instant Smith finished the translation. Smith’s veiled translation of vanishing plates penned by naïve scribes is what is known today as the Book of Mormon.
To imagine anyone staking the eternal destiny of their immortal soul on the fanciful tales of Joseph Smith is difficult indeed, but when you add to Smith’s fanciful tales the sworn statements of his neighbors and acquaintances as to his total lack of “moral character” it becomes altogether unimaginable. According to a slew of his contemporaries, Joseph Smith was well-known for “his habits of exaggeration and untruthfulness.” Among “those who knew him best,” his “word was received with the least confidence”; since they, more than anyone else, were well aware of his ability to “utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvelous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity.”
While space prohibits the enumeration of Joseph Smith’s sundry and specious doctrines, permit me to elaborate on a couple that Mormons have modified in modern-times for their own political interests. One of Smith’s final declarations to the faithful before his death was the following: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.” According to its founder, “the great secret” of the Mormon religion is the doctrine of the “celestial”; namely, Smith’s teaching that all Mormon men may be exalted to godhood and eventually given their own planet to rule and reign over.
Joseph Smith believed in a plurality of gods. He taught that each one had gained deification by their exemplariness as mortals on other planets. Therefore, Mormon men could also be exalted to godhood by living exemplary Mormon lives here on earth. This incredible teaching spawned by the height of hubris is succinctly stated my Mormons today who unashamedly profess: “What God was, we are. What God is, we will become.”
Mormon theology mimics universalism in its teaching that everyone goes to heaven. According to Mormonism, heaven consist of three tiers or levels. The first and lowest level is called the “telestial.” It is reserved for the immoral and irreligious. The second and middle level is called the “terrestrial.” It is reserved for the moral and religious. The third and highest level of heaven is called the “celestial.” It is reserved for Mormon couples who live exemplary Mormon lives and are married in the Mormon Temple’s secret and sacred marriage ceremony. It is here—in the Mormons’ eternally reserved heavenly penthouse—that godhood is obtained.
Once godhood is obtained, Mormon men and women spend eternity reproducing spirit children. This explains the blasphemous Mormon teaching that Jesus was the actual offspring of a sexual union between God and Mary, and that Lucifer is Jesus’ spirit brother, who unfortunately went over to the dark side. In Mormon lore, all of these spirit children being produced by the sexual unions of deified Mormons in paradise’s penthouse are in need of physical bodies to inhabit on some planet.
It was this need of physical “earthsuits” for paradise’s spirit children that inspired Joseph Smith to secretly preach to his followers the practice of plural marriages (polygamy). In Smith’s mind, the more wives a man had the more children he could spawn and the more bodies there would be for inhabitation by the offspring of the gods. Although Smith’s doctrine of the celestial (plural marriages) was kept secret during his lifetime, it was shamelessly announced to the world in 1852, eight years after his death.
Forced to go West by severe persecution, Mormons settled in Utah, where they believed they could establish their own kingdom on earth. It was in Utah, under the leadership of Brigham Young, that Mormons began openly practicing polygamy. This brazen practice of Smith’s despicable doctrine soon exacted a heavy toll on the Mormon’s fledgling kingdom when the federal government criminalized polygamy and outlawed membership in the Mormon Church. In an obvious attempt to placate an increasingly hostile government, not to mention to gain statehood for Utah, Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Mormon Church, issued a manifesto in 1890 that called upon all Mormons to no longer enter into any marital relationship that was in violation of the law of the land.
In spite of Woodruff’s manifesto and Utah’s acceptance as a state in 1896, Mormons continued to practice polygamy. Although it was no longer practiced publicly, but only secretly in Utah, it continued to be practiced openly by Mormon refugees who fled Utah for places like Mexico. Notable among these displaced, jut-jawed plural marriage practitioners were several ancestors of present-day presidential aspirant Mitt Romney.
Like Freemasonry and ancient Gnosticism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has always been shrouded in secrecy. For instance, the Mormon Church is replete with secret signs, symbols and handshakes, as well as with secret temple services, rituals and ceremonies; such as proxy baptisms for the dead and celestial marriages. As a result of such secrecy, it is impossible to verify Mormons’ claim that polygamy has disappeared from mainstream Mormonism and is only found today among peripheral fundamentalist sects.
While it does not appear that polygamy is commonly practiced among Mormons today, we can’t say with certainty that it is no longer practiced at all. What we can say, however, is that Mormons have proven themselves more than willing to compromise their religious profession in order to serve their political interests. Not only is this true in regards to their about-face on polygamy, but also in their more recent acceptance of blacks into the Mormon priesthood.
Up until 1978, blacks were excluded from the Mormon temple and priesthood. The reason behind this segregation of blacks from Latter-day Saints was the Mormon belief that Cain, the first murderer, was the progenitor of the Negro race. According to Joseph Smith (Chapter 4 of the Book of Moses in The Pearl of Great Price), God cursed Cain with black skin because of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. Furthermore, Mormons also believed that all preexistent souls who sided with Lucifer against Christ in the “war in heaven” were punished by God by being assigned black bodies during their earthly sojourn. White skin was therefore considered a sign of a valiant preexistent soul and black skin a sign of a villainous and cursed preexistent soul.
Obviously, white supremacist doctrines were no more conducive to Mormons gaining acceptance in mainstream America than was the doctrine of the celestial (plural marriages). If Mormons were to ever pass themselves off as another wholesome, all-American, Christian denomination, then their past color line had to be erased and an aura of colorblindness created. Thus, in 1978, the Mormon Church received another revelation of convenience; this one allowing them to sweep their white supremacist doctrines under the rug, as well as to open all temple doors to blacks and all of Africa to Mormon missionaries.
That Mormons have proven themselves quite adept at snookering America into seeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as another run-of-the-mill Christian denomination rather than an off-the-wall cult with bizarre beliefs and preposterous practices is undeniable. Moreover, many a Mormon has gained celebrity status in our contemporary celebrity-crazed culture. For instance, more Mormons are listed in Who’s Who in America than any other religious group. Among American Mormons’ Who’s Who are entertainers Donnie and Marie Osmond, former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Steve Young, political commentator Bay Buchanan, radio talk show host Glenn Beck, actor Wilford Brimley, bestselling author Stephen R. Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Successful People), and the late J. W. Marriott, founder of the Marriott hotel chain.
No less than fifteen Mormons are presently serving in the United States Congress. Ten serve in the House of Representatives and five in the U.S. Senate. Among those serving in the senate are Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Democratic Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader and most powerful Mormon in Washington today. Another Mormon, Mike Leavitt, is currently serving in President Bush’s Cabinet as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Despite the fact that a large percentage of Americans express strong reservations in regards to electing a Mormon to the presidency, the popularity of Mormon celebrities and success of Mormon politicians in recent years suggest that a Mormon occupant of the Oval Office is no longer outside the realm of possibility.
Mitt Romney’s father George, who served as both the chairman of American Motors Cooperation (1954-1962) and the 43rd governor of Michigan (1963-1969), ran for president in 1968. Though he started out as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, his candidacy was crippled by his own confession of having been brainwashed about the War in Vietnam. The combination of being both brainwashed and a Christian cultist, all of whom were considered brainwashed by their respective cults, proved too much for Republican voters in 1968, who ultimately gave the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon and a cold-shoulder to George Romney. In 1968, Americans could not bring themselves to vote for a presidential candidate that they saw as subject to brainwashing, religious or otherwise.
Perhaps, voters today, unlike those in 1968, will have no problem marking their ballots for a Mormon candidate for the presidency. After all, we are now told that candidates’ religious convictions are inconsequential and voter concern over them is unconstitutional. So it shouldn’t matter to any of us that a man running for the most powerful office in the world believes: (1) He is “a god in embryo” (2) He is destined for a polygamous paradise of eternal duration (3) Jesus Christ was married at the wedding in Cana of Galilee to “Mary, Martha, and the other Mary” (4) Joseph Smith was able to do what Jesus Christ failed to do; namely, keep his church together (5) Jesus Christ is coming back to Jackson County, Missouri for the express purpose of vindicating Joseph Smith (6) Man did not fall in the Garden of Eden, but made a necessary step toward becoming divine, and (7) No man can enter into the kingdom of God unless he accepts Joseph Smith and receives from him a certificate for the celestial kingdom.
While I can’t speak for my fellow-Americans, I can certainly say for myself that I’m more than a little troubled over someone occupying the Oval Office who not only believes that he is destined for deity, but also destined to rule and reign over a planet. What's more, I can’t help but question, in the light of Mormons’ bizarre doctrines and sorted past, a Mormon presidential candidate’s soundness of judgment and proclivity to gullibility. Do we really want a man who believes in the superiority of Joseph Smith over Jesus Christ and who belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to have his finger on the nuclear button?
In addition to the above, Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., the president of Southern Baptists’ Southern Seminary, suggest another reason for Christian hesitancy in marking a ballot for a Mormon presidential candidate. According to Dr. Mohler, putting a Mormon in the White House would lend legitimacy to Mormonism and greatly bolster Mormon missionary work all over the world. Consequently, Christian voters are forced to ask themselves whether or not what they will do at the polls will jeopardize men’s immortal souls by helping a Christian cult propagate a false gospel all over the world.
Don Walton
